Tristesse

If you heard the Kalashnikovs firing on surplus workers, you gave no sign. You just glanced one way, then the other, before passing inside. It’s possible, even likely, that you experienced a delayed reaction, a kind of thunderstorm blue. You wondered aloud which famous rock star you were. Everything is art, you claimed, including the 20-minute headstand you do on your terrace each morning. Later, when your date arrived wearing a lovely dress of used tinfoil, she asked, “What made you want to look up ‘tristesse’?” You wouldn’t say it was the snakes and turtles that someone had dropped from a great height, but it was.